Consolidation question should be uppermost of voters' minds: Joe Frolik

View full sizePlain Dealer file photoWhile it's not exciting to talk about communities combining services like garbage pickup, it's an important issue for cities struggling to cut costs.

Summer arrives Tuesday, but election season is already under way across Northeast Ohio. Candidates for mayors and city councils began pulling petitions in the dead of winter to meet this month's filing deadline for September primaries.

So if you haven't yet had a local candidate knock on your door or interrupt your yard work, you soon may. When that happens, let me suggest a question -- one that my colleagues on the editorial board and I will certainly pose when we interview candidates seeking The Plain Dealer's endorsement this fall:

"What collaborations, consolidations or mergers of city services will you pursue if elected?"

If the answer is something along the lines of "None that I can think of," or "No, we're good," end the conversation right there.

Anyone who can't see the need for local government to get dramatically more efficient isn't worth your time -- or your vote.

Whatever you think of the budget the state of Ohio is about to adopt, the fact is that municipalities, townships and counties are going to take big hits, losing income from the Local Government Fund, commercial tax reimbursements from the state and the estate tax. Business as usual is not an option.

Even if it were, it wouldn't be a smart one. You don't have to hate government to realize that in Northeast Ohio, we have a lot of it and it costs a ton. Consider some numbers compiled by the Fund for Our Economic Future, the foundation-driven consortium to revitalize this region:

• Across the 16 counties represented by its members, there are 868 local governments, including school districts and special-purpose districts. That's roughly one government for every 4,000 people.

• Between 2002 and 2007, the most recent year for which comprehensive totals were available, the cost of local government grew from $16 billion to $20 billion in a region with total economic activity of about $170 billion. That 25 percent increase isn't out of whack with the growth in local government sending nationally, but while the U.S. population was growing 4.5 percent during those years, Northeast Ohio saw no growth.

His members have given away $609,000 in the past two years to seed government collaborations. The Fund leads a network of public officials, government employees, academics and concerned citizens beating the drum for efficiency.

"If we reduce the cost of local government by even 5 percent a year, that's $1 billion a year," says Whitehead. "That would probably pay for a college education for every high school graduate in Northeast Ohio. Or it would allow Case [Western Reserve University] to triple its research budget. And what are the two best predictors of economic growth? Education and innovation."

A former management consultant, Whitehead knows change isn't easy. It has to overcome inertia, parochialism and state laws that discourage cooperation.

He also understands that it's not easy to rally citizens behind, say, a plan for three suburbs to share trash pickup -- or to hire a fourth city to do it for them.

"This is boring stuff," he says. "It's also important."

The good news is that many elected officials, especially those who wrestle with scary budget realities every day, recognize the challenge.

"Mayors talk about this all the time," says Susan Infeld, who's in her second year as chief executive of University Heights.

Her community and Shaker Heights recently got money from the Cleveland Foundation to study how their fire operations might be consolidated or even merged. Infeld and Shaker Heights Mayor Earl Leiken both live near Fairmount Circle, where the towns abut. Their potential collaboration emerged after the two mayor-neighbors realized that less than a mile separates two of their fire houses as well -- a reminder that, in uncharted waters, trust and personal relationships matter.

Ed Jerse, Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald's point man on government cooperation, says he has detected lots of interest, but also lots of questions. Most are practical: How to structure a collaboration? How to pay for it?

The state could help with the former if the final budget includes Senate language removing legal barriers, and with the latter if it includes incentives for consolidation that the House passed.

"I think we're changing from a historical dynamic that looked to local control as the ideal," Jerse says. "Fiscal realities are making consolidation the paradigm of the future. Instead of people asking why would you collaborate, they're going to be asking why aren't you collaborating."

He might be right. John Hoornbeek, director of Kent State University's Center for Public Administration and Public Policy, counts about 240 ideas that are at least under discussion across the metropolitan area -- including some broad service mergers in Summit and Stark counties. Parma and Parma Heights just agreed to share some police functions.

But old habits die hard: When a recent state performance audit suggested that tiny Woodmere consider buying police services from a larger neighbor, Mayor Charles Smith said he didn't think his residents were ready to give up their identity. We heard much the same this spring from Trevor Elkins, who went on to win the Democratic nomination for mayor of Newburgh Heights.

Even those eager to collaborate caution that it's hard work. Discussions about combining fire services among eight West Shore communities began 10 years ago. Five of them merged their dispatch centers in 2006. They're still talking about other consolidations -- such as maintenance or inspections -- or even a full-scale merger.

And not all of their constituents are happy.

"When I was running two years ago, I had somebody slam the door in my face and say, 'You're for that regionalism,' " says Bay Village Mayor Debbie Sutherland. "Well, yeah, I am. The public really has to get up to speed about what's realistic to expect from local government."